


Counting Stars

by skulls_and_stripes



Category: BoJack Horseman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Eating Disorders, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Past Abuse, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24866011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skulls_and_stripes/pseuds/skulls_and_stripes
Summary: “We’re not doomed. In the grand scheme of things, we’re just tiny specks that will one day be forgotten. So it doesn’t matter what we did in the past, or how we’ll be remembered. The only thing that matters is right now, this moment, this spectacular moment that we are sharing together. Right, Joelle?”Joelle remained silent.“...Joelle?”(Or: The one where BoJack's downfall is a different vice, and everything's different but nothing changes.)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 42





	Counting Stars

The water was still burning in his throat when Herb, staring at him like he was just  _ daring  _ him to say something, poured the remains down the sink. “You’ve  _ got  _ to be kidding me.”

BoJack rubbed the back of his neck nervously, staring at his knees. “What, aren’t we allowed to have water on set anymore?” He forced a nervous chuckle. “I mean, I know it might damage some of the props, but -- we can’t just be dehydrated all the time.”

“I’m not an idiot, BJ. I know what water looks like.” It had been a long time since he’d referred to BoJack with that nickname. (It had been a long time since he’d referred to BoJack at all really, beyond what was necessary with them working together. He’d pushed him away, just like he did with everyone else.) “And I know this is the fifth time you’ve been caught bringing alcohol to a set with minors.”

BoJack said nothing.

“If you’ve got more hidden, I swear to God, I’m gonna goddamn kill you.” BoJack meekly opened his drawer, proving its emptiness; Herb had been checking the trailer for alcohol ever since the time BoJack was sent home early, too shitfaced to act, barely an hour after Herb told him off and confiscated his bottle of vodka, meeting Herb’s angry confusion with a slurred explanation of hidden booze in the drawer. “Oh good, so you’ve only had  _ almost the entire bottle  _ so far today. BJ, it’s not even lunchtime yet. No wonder they can’t get you to remember your lines for more than half a scene.”

BoJack stiffened. “Shut up.”

“Shut up?” repeated Herb incredulously. “BJ, you’re ruining my show! And your liver.” It was hard to tell how serious that last part was.

BoJack couldn’t seem to decide whether he wanted to make himself large and intimidating to scare Herb off, or make himself as small as possible to communicate that  _ this hurt.  _ He gestured wildly, but also shrunk in his seat. “I know, I know, I’m a stupid piece of shit who can’t act and only got the role because I was friends with the guy who pitched the sitcom, and now I can’t even do  _ that  _ right because you hate me, and I suck.”

Herb frowned. “Nobody’s saying that.”

_ “I’m  _ saying that.” He glared. (He wasn’t sure why he was angry. The alcohol, probably.) “Why do you think I drink so much, asshole?”

_ “I’m  _ the asshole?”

BoJack rather thought he was. He  _ had,  _ after all, just poured his vodka down the sink before he was drunk enough to block out the memories swirling through his mind  _ all the goddamn time,  _ and then proceeded to tell him off for it. BoJack  _ hated  _ being told off. BoJack was a good student all through school, until he started ditching class and not bothering with his work because he was always either drunk or hungover, and he could count on one hand the number of times a teacher had needed to tell him off. And, of course, he only worked at that stupid bar briefly before Herb got him the show. Herb was probably the first person in BoJack’s miserable existence to tell him off without following up with violence, and BoJack didn’t know how to feel about that.

BoJack didn’t know it was possible to feel small and big at the same time, but that’s how he felt now. Being yelled at again and again for  _ the same bullshit that was never going to change _ (because it was  _ him  _ that was the problem) made him feel like he was just a scared little kid again, to the point where he had to consciously remind himself that the faint scent of cigarettes he could smell was the lingering residue from Herb’s recent smoke break (that he had to take because BoJack was stressing him out, again) and not his mother’s cigars from the other room. But then he would remember that he  _ wasn’t  _ that scared little kid anymore, and that was a powerful feeling, to remember that. To remember that if Herb tried to hurt him -- and usually after a few drinks he would forget that this would be  _ very  _ out of character -- he could hurt Herb worse, it felt  _ good.  _ It made him feel powerful, and strong, and safe. It was rare for him to feel any of those things when he was sober.

“...No,” said BoJack finally. “I’m the asshole.”

“Well, yeah, kinda. You’ve gotta get your shit together, BJ.”

That  _ hurt. _

Herb, BoJack was realising now, was the first person to  _ ever  _ give a shit about him, in any context. And it was annoying at first, because it just felt so  _ weird  _ to have a friend who would offer him a life home if he was drunk and ask if he was okay when he seemed to be in a bad mood and choose to hang out with him, when he was raised to believe that nobody would ever interact with him willingly and nobody cared if he was okay everyone would be better off if he died in a drunk driving accident. But now it was downright  _ painful,  _ because every reminder of the fact that Herb still (reluctantly) gave a shit whether he lived or died made him feel like he was getting closer to pushing him away and losing that.

“Stop,” he murmured meekly.

Herb raised an eyebrow. “Stop what?”

“Yelling at me.”

“Jesus, BJ, you can’t expect people to not be mad at you when --”

He didn’t know why Herb stopped. He didn’t know why he felt so  _ weird.  _ (It had been so long since the last time he felt safe enough to let himself break down crying that he’d actually  _ forgotten  _ about some of the physical aspects, like the way his lip quivered and his eyes burned.) 

BoJack burst into tears.

On some stupid instinct he covered his face, like that would somehow stop Herb from noticing. Then, on some even stupider instinct, he opened his eyes and refused to close them, vision trained on Herb so he’d notice any sudden movement, arms raised defensively. It took him a long time to realise that Herb wasn’t angry, and a longer time to accept it.

(He wasn’t  _ that  _ stupid. He hadn’t  _ totally  _ been living under a rock in regards to healthy relationships. He’d done more than enough episodes about having to comfort the kids to know that most parents  _ don’t  _ actually react to crying with fury. It was just that, well, Sabrina and Ethan and Olivia were these  _ perfect  _ kids, that were  _ impossible  _ not to love, and BoJack was, well,  _ BoJack.) _

“I’m sorry,” he croaked. He proceeded to say it three more times before Herb could get a word in.

“What’s wrong?”

He gestured vaguely. “What  _ isn’t  _ wrong?” It was easier than saying that it was  _ him  _ that was wrong. 

Herb moved. BoJack wasn’t sure why he moved -- maybe he wanted to place a reassuring hand on his shoulder, or maybe he just needed to stretch -- but he  _ moved,  _ and that was enough. He flinched so badly he was damn close to falling off his chair, and then he came close again in his rush to stand up, and as much as he would have liked to justify his overreaction by telling himself he was too panicked to be in control of his actions, it was undeniable that the fact that Herb hadn’t gotten punched in the face in the confusion was a sign of BoJack’s enormous self-restraint. He almost dashed out of his trailer, on some childhood instinct to run to his room and lock the door (which worked great until he was fifteen when his father kicked the door down and refused to put it back on for two years), but then he realised that he couldn’t lock the trailer from the outside (and that would be a dick move anyway), so he tried to act like he was  _ angry  _ instead of just downright scared. He pointed at the door. “Get out.”

“But --”

_ “Get out!”  _ Herb hurriedly obeyed, and BoJack bolted the door. He briefly wondered if that was the end of it -- if Herb would go back to whatever he was doing before he came by to deliver a script and got sidetracked disposing of the vodka, and then eventually BoJack would come back out to film, and they’d collectively decide to pretend it never happened.

BoJack thought that would be nice. But, Herb was still outside his trailer.

“BJ, I, I know we haven’t been super …  _ amicable  _ lately, but … I’m not leaving until I know you’re okay.”

God  _ damn  _ him.

“I’m sorry,” said BoJack again. After a pause, he added, “I’m not mad at you.”

“...Then why did you just scream at me to get out of your trailer?”

“Because I wanted you to get out. Duh.” He forced a nervous chuckle, but his voice was still audibly breaking with every word. “And … I didn’t want  _ you  _ to be mad.”

Normally, at this point, Herb would say something like, “You didn’t want me to be mad, so you made me mad?” Instead, he said, “Why would I be mad at you?”

“I don’t know.” He gulped. “Normally people get mad at me if I cry.”

“...People?”

“My -- My parents.”

“Jesus Christ.” There was the click and hiss of a lighter, and then an inhale so deep BoJack could hear it through the door -- another stress-cigarette, probably. (That man gave BoJack a sitcom and all he ever did in return was stress him out.) “BJ, are you okay?”

BoJack took a deep breath. “...No.” Then he started downright sobbing.

* * *

Twelve  _ hellish  _ weeks later, BoJack did his best to feign his previous confidence as he walked through the set. Most of what he’d allowed other people to think of as confidence was actually just being too drunk to give a shit if people thought he was being a dick, so this was hard. And it didn’t help that, alcoholic or sober, BoJack  _ hated  _ himself. And the knowledge that he could spend three goddamn months in rehab without the sitcom that he was supposedly the star of suffering for it hadn’t exactly helped his self-esteem (or lack thereof). 

(He would later find that re-writing half the season to not include the horse was one of the hardest things Herb ever had to do. But, BoJack didn’t know that right now. And he probably wouldn’t have believed it if Herb had told him.)

His unconfidence was clearly a little unfounded, though, because as he was rapidly discovering, it wasn’t  _ just  _ that he happened to be friends with the guy who pitched  _ Horsin’ Around.  _ Herb wouldn’t have given him the role if he was as shitty as he thought he was. And when he was sober -- which previously wasn’t often, but now was going to have to be most of the time -- he was actually a good actor.

Crazy, huh?

Crazier still, when he was sober, BoJack was a good  _ friend.  _ To  _ everyone.  _ It started with just Herb, because he was so grateful for everything and the least he could do was offer him a lift home from time to time and quit being too stubborn (and scared) to interact with him, but then he started trying to be better to the kids because he wanted to impress Herb, because even with all of this love and friendship he was still desperate for any scrap of positive attention, and before he knew it he was consistently aware of Sharona’s friends’ personal lives because he’d started actually listening when she talked while doing his hair.

BoJack’s life was going  _ great.  _ His fans loved him, and his friends  _ liked  _ him, and that made it easier to forget about how strongly he didn’t like himself. He didn’t need alcohol to get him through the day, though he did need a concerningly large amount of cigarettes, and sure he  _ thought  _ about relapsing a lot but he never actually  _ did.  _ BoJack Horseman was  _ great --  _ he was a great person, and a great actor, and a great  _ friend. _

But then, Herb was gay. And then, BoJack was  _ not  _ a great friend.

* * *

He had  _ no  _ reason to blame himself.

Okay,  _ maybe  _ he had a bit of a reason. Like, Herb would  _ never  _ have allowed this to make it into an episode. And it was, kind of, his fault Herb got fired. But, really, what could he have done?

They couldn’t make the show without the titular horse. So if BoJack had threatened to walk and followed through, Herb would have been out of a job anyway, and so would anyone else. And, BoJack had been banned from helping the writing team in the show’s early years, on the grounds that all of his ideas were apparently either stupid or racist (which was totally bullshit, by the way -- he never said they were  _ all  _ thieves), and he wasn’t one of the people that was continuing with the jokes off-screen, because they made the mistake of filming the episode right before Halloween and that meant BoJack’s new cellphone was blowing up near-constantly -- God, he longed for the day that his father didn’t ruin Halloween for him. That day would probably be when his father died.

It wasn’t his fault. The pumpkin suit wasn’t his idea.

And, the parts that  _ were  _ his fault, weren’t even  _ his fault!  _ He didn’t  _ know.  _ He didn’t  _ know  _ that turning the pumpkin-related jokes into an inside joke with the cast would somehow hurt her. He didn’t  _ know  _ that her daily bathroom breaks right after lunch weren’t just to deal with a  _ girl thing.  _ He didn’t  _ know  _ that, the one time he raised an eyebrow and asked why she was having a regular soda if she was still on that diet she was constantly bragging about, the coke was the closest thing she’d had to food that day and the only thing she was planning on consuming.

And honestly, the whole thing was so  _ stupid.  _ The fat jokes were directed at  _ Olivia,  _ and only in the pumpkin suit, which was  _ clearly  _ not what she looked like in real life. Why the hell would  _ Joelle  _ go and develop an eating disorder?

He didn’t even realise how quickly she was losing weight until she got her stupid ass hospitalised, and then missed five episodes to go to a clinic. She apparently hadn’t fully recovered by the time she got back, which made BoJack question what was the point of going in the first place, which meant she would have to go home early for therapy every Thursday, and her parents threatened to sue if anyone said a  _ word  _ about her body. Which was stupid, because it meant they weren’t allowed to say anything when she called herself fat. 

BoJack wanted to say  _ lots  _ of things when Joelle called herself fat. Usually, he was in a good mood, and those things were “you’re not fat”, or “your eating disorder is lying to you”, or “even if you were fat it wouldn’t be a bad thing”. Sometimes he was in less of a good mood, and it didn’t help that Sharona was waving her booze around all the goddamn time and he didn’t know  _ why  _ he didn’t relapse but somehow he resisted the urge, and what he wanted to say was, “get over yourself”, or “you’re literally a skeleton”, or “just earlier today I caught you admiring your tiny-ass wrists in the mirror like a weirdo, you can’t be fat  _ and  _ skinny”. 

One day, BoJack had to listen to another self-deprecating rant from Joelle after a sleepless night in which he was woken up no less than  _ four  _ times. His grandmother had died, and he didn’t know why he was expected to care about that when she’d basically been brain-dead since before he was even born, but because the funeral was in Los Angeles for some stupid-ass reason, his stupid-ass parents took it upon themselves to invite themselves to his house for the whole week, and they spent the entire time demanding food and then complaining about it.

BoJack was getting real sick of hearing about how he was already enough of a fatass without eating every time his mother was hungry, especially since his father was in the room and so he didn’t have the courage to point out that was stupid to make him cook only for one other person and she was perfectly capable of making her own goddamn food.

BoJack  _ wanted  _ to say, “If anyone here’s fat, it’s me.”

But, he didn’t.

* * *

The annoying thing was, Joelle was always so  _ composed. _

She wasn’t. He knew that. But, well, it sure  _ seemed  _ like it. Joelle looked  _ okay.  _ Joelle showered every morning, and got dressed into a fashionable outfit, and did her hair all nice, and then she would go out and act and do her daily chores. And, well, she was weirdly pale because she’d managed to give herself severe anemia, and her teeth weren’t looking too great and her arms were covered in marks and her eyes had dark bags under them, but it was easy for BoJack to overlook that because, even though she couldn’t recognise it, Joelle was  _ skinny. _

BoJack showered once a week if he was lucky, and got dressed into the same clothes every day year-round (at some point he’d become completely incapable of coping with cold, so sweaters were still comfortable in summer), and when Todd pointed out how bad his mane looked he would steal his brush. Then, he would go shopping because he didn’t trust Todd, and spend the rest of his day watching TV and doing other stupid bullshit while Todd cleaned up after him.

And, worst of all, BoJack was a  _ fatass. _

Joelle was  _ organised,  _ too. She had an actual  _ diet,  _ with coherent rules and everything. Sure, the  _ rules  _ were that she would get through each day on a diet soda -- and BoJack would question why it really needs to be a diet soda if it’s literally the only thing she’s eating as though he didn’t do the exact same thing -- and occasionally indulge in a slice of plain bread or maybe even a small fruit so she didn’t faint in the middle of a work day, but well, it made  _ sense. _

BoJack just ate whatever the hell he wanted because he had no self-control. Then, of course, he would have to just  _ stop  _ eating altogether until he ate shit on his living room floor and Todd threatened to call an ambulance if he didn’t have something to get his blood sugar up. Rinse and repeat,  _ forever.  _ A hellish existence.

It probably didn’t help that he threw up most of what he ate.

BoJack, in some twisted way, looked  _ up  _ to Joelle, for her sheer discipline (and he didn’t like to hear about the fact that it was anything but discipline to starve yourself in a desperate attempt to reach a weight that would never make you happy) and, well,  _ thinness.  _ And the times they drifted apart bothered him more than he would like to admit.

Like when she got offended that after ghosting her almost entirely after the show ended, the only reason he was interacting with her again was to ask her to guest star on his shitty mockumentary on himself. And the time she crashed at his house after attempting suicide and had sex with him and then left because Diane and Todd wouldn’t shut up about how it was  _ weird  _ (the age gap wasn’t even that big, Jesus). And the time they talked on the phone for the first time in over a year, and she offhandedly mentioned that she was back in therapy and she'd actually been eating pretty well for eight months now.

He should have been happy for her. He  _ wanted  _ to be happy for her. But BoJack was just  _ angry. _

(It was easy to recover when you were  _ Joelle,  _ he thought bitterly. Joelle was  _ skinny.) _

So really, it was no wonder that when Todd inevitably found out about Emily, he called her.

* * *

“I want to be famous,” she murmured, half-asleep from the lulling voice of the narrator and the dark sky above her.

It was a pretty stupid thing to murmur, all things considered. Joelle  _ was  _ famous. Joelle was one of the stars of a sitcom before she was even a teenager, and by the time she hit her twenties she was acting in theatres. Joelle was the sort of person who would get a big role in some obscure musical production, and people would read the cast list and say, “Oh, Joelle?” And sometimes, if they were a theatre nerd, they would then proceed to say, “I saw her in that other show in January, she’s really good.” Or maybe, if they were borderline obsessive about theatre, “I read online that she had an eating disorder?”

Joelle was famous. So was BoJack. BoJack  _ knew  _ that. But, BoJack also knew why she still wanted more.

She was no Sarah Lynn. Neither was he.

(They both chose to ignore the fact that Sarah Lynn’s great fame never seemed to make her happy. They were raised to think that if enough people liked them, then they would like themselves, and if they still hated themselves and their lives, well, they just needed to gain more fans.)

The narrator continued to drone on.

_ “...be it horse, cat, human, or even lizard, our lives are but the briefest flashes in a universe that is billions of years old.” _

“See, Joelle?” said BoJack, pointing at the artificial constellations in the planetarium ceiling. “We’re not doomed. In the grand scheme of things, we’re just tiny specks that will one day be forgotten. So it doesn’t matter what we did in the past, or how we’ll be remembered. The only thing that matters is right now, this moment, this  _ spectacular  _ moment that we are sharing together. Right, Joelle?”

Joelle remained silent.

“Joelle?”

He nudged her in the ribs. (He could feel each one individually.) She didn’t respond. (His heart skipped a beat.)

“...Joelle?”

He placed a few fingers on her tiny wrist to check for a pulse. He couldn’t find one.

But, it was  _ fine!  _ He probably just needed to search harder. Joelle was  _ fine,  _ she  _ had  _ to be. She wouldn’t just  _ drop dead,  _ no, there would be warning signs, and he had seen  _ none.  _ Well, there  _ was  _ that fake-out where she scared him half to death by passing out when she stood up too fast back in the hotel, but -- but that was  _ nothing!  _ She was  _ fine.  _ He  _ knew  _ she was fine because just a second after she almost broke her nose on the hotel floor (he would have caught her, but his head spun when he stood up and by the time he was in any position to help she was already down), she got up and saw the TV and then had a breakdown because Sarah Lynn was better than her  _ again,  _ and oh,  _ shit. _

The  _ oscars.  _ He first called her after the fight with Todd, which was  _ right  _ after the Oscar nominations were announced. And now, he’d taken her to the planetarium, as one final  _ fuck you  _ to Sarah Lynn by stealing her favourite place, right after watching the actual Oscars.

Wasn’t there, like,  _ six weeks  _ between the nominations and the actual announcements?

(BoJack’s eating habits were a mess at the best of times, but at least he could somewhat reliably keep track of what he ate in an average six weeks. Or, rather, he could remember what he’d eaten in the last week and then multiply. His ninth grade math teacher, had he been there, would have been constantly breathing down his throat about how assuming a constant rate for anything is shortsighted at best. But, his ninth grade math teacher wasn’t here.)

(BoJack didn’t need to multiply to figure out how much Joelle had eaten in the last six weeks. It was a rare enough occurrence that he could remember each meal clearly.)

But, it would be  _ fine.  _ Hospitals were  _ great  _ with this sort of thing! They’d just stick a tube in her or something and she’d be fine. All he had to do now was call the ambulance, explain to the paramedics how he knowingly and deliberately made her relapse, and everything would be fine. 

...Or, better yet, he could skip the part where he had to tell all of his friends that he  _ killed  _ her, and say she’d called him. Of course, he’d have to use her phone to do it, but she was unconscious, she wouldn’t mind. And, he’d have to wait for longer than was optimal, but -- you have to do what you have to do, right?

(Seventeen minutes never hurt anybody.)

* * *

“So to recap, you allowed Joelle to be put in a pumpkin suit so you could make fat jokes about her when she was a child. She then developed an eating disorder.” He tried to point out that he didn’t come up with that episode, but she cut him off. “When she was suicidal, you had sex with her, and when she was mentally healthy, you got her back on the diet that killed her. Then, in an effort to cover for yourself, you waited to call the paramedics that might have saved her life. And you don’t think you have any power over women.”

The interview continued. It was all a blur at this point. He was barely aware of what he was hearing, or what he was saying.

Biscuits Braxby looked him dead in the eye. “ Over these last two nights, you’ve drawn an outline of a person. A person who doesn’t think about others, a person who puts his own needs first. And over and over, other people get hurt, not necessarily because he means to hurt them, but because he just doesn’t care. This person I’m describing, is it a different person, or is it you?”

BoJack took a deep breath.

“...Yeah. It’s me.”


End file.
